The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.
My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings.
There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.
I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.
You ask why I'm fascinated by the human figure? As a human animal, I am interested in some of my fellow animals: in their minds and bodies.
A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.
The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.
I never think about my style but just try and make the pictures look believable.
I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.
As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.
Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.
I want paint to work as flesh.
A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.
The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.
The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter.
I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.
The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement.
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.
The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.
